

Review So Far.
#1
Posted 02 January 2020 - 09:16 AM
Graphics
The graphics are really bad for a 2019 release, and whether it's even an improvement over MWO is really only a matter of taste. The capabilities of UE4 has not been realised, and it's a real shame. Ironically the things that look best in MW5 are the things ported over from MWO, namely the mech models, but the mechs still are graphically quite dissapointing in other ways with blurry textures, no new camo patterns, terrible ragdoll effects and so on. I'm runnning all settings maxed out and the game still looks pretty bad.
It's not just a matter of bad graphical fidelity, it's also how empty the maps are of wildlife and other environmental features, and how low the variety in buildings, plants, trees and other assets are. This is compounded by the blandness of the random generation, which seems incapable of creating any really interesting terrain features that impact the tactics you need to employ.
The disappointing graphics extend to the UI, which looks like some default web template overlay or whatnot rather than something created for the game. This is truly puzzling as a better looking UI was presented earlier and also the MWO UI looks way better and could presumably have been ported over. There is no cockpit integration of the UI, and neither is there any functional elements of the cockpit to interact with.
Nowhere is the graphics more disappointing than the NPCs in your mechbay, which look like they took ragdolls from some stock scifi asset library and just placed them there with no animations or anything. It's actually quite shameless how in your face this is, it's like they're saying "Yeah we just couldn't be arsed to make characters for the game"
Oh, destructible buildings. Yeah it's really nice that everything is destructible, until it becomes obvious that there is no weight or impact to anything. Everthing is built of paper thin clay that falls apart the moment you look at it. Correction, it doesn't fall apart it gets visibly swapped for another asset with a glaring sense of teleportation, which kinda ruins the experience of destroying things.
The phrase "asset flip" comes to mind a lot here, the development workflow here is clearly a lot shortcuts and copypasta layered on top of each other.
Missions
Missions are frankly terrible, both story and the randomly generated ones. Enemies spawn in a way that makes no sense and also invalidates long range strategies and scouting out the mission with light mechs. Enemy AI is meh, and it could be passable if it was in a context of sensible placement and mission design, but since that isn't something ever seen in the game the mediocre AI becomes a real problem. So you could have great AI and a good placement system and the lack of mission design could be overlooked, or you could have well crafted missions and the bad AI could be overlooked, but when you have neither it ends up really bad.
Difficulty
The difficulty level is ok, but it is obtained in a really bad way. Enemies are way to easy to kill, but are thrown at you like a horde of zombies in the more difficult missions. So either the game is too easy or it's a slugfest where you are slowly worn down. Nowhere is there ever a sense of exciting duels with a dangerous foe, nowhere is there a sense of a battle of wits.
Economy
The economy is actually ok, but quite barebones. No major complaints here except I wish there was more to do. I also wish the salvage system was more tied to what actually happened in the mission.
Story
Haven't played that far in the story but so far it's almost unbearably bad to be honest.
World
Seems unfinished, where is the lore? Where is the faction distinction? Where is exciting things to do? Where is the exploration of a galaxy that feels interesting and exciting? Nowhere as far as I can see.
So the final verdict, which I'm really sad about, is that this is not a good game. I want to say it has potential, but since the word is still out on the level of modding access and what projects will be undertaken that's hard to say. I don't think PGI will improve it that much on their own.
If the game had some brilliant aspect to "hook" me I'd quite frankly be k with that, if the combat exerience was so good that I craved more of it for example I could forgive the rest perhaps, but it just isn't so I'd rather play MWO if I just want the combat. If the story was super immersive I could forgive other aspects, but it isn't. If the missions were great the game could be carried by that, but they're not. And so on, there just isn't anything in the game that stands out as really good.
I want the game to be good, I'd be fine with some aspects of it being good to outweight the bad, but right now there's nothing and I actually can't stand playing it. Current score is a 3/10.
#2
Posted 02 January 2020 - 11:15 AM
Did you seriously expect a $200 million budget AAA level game for €31, made for a very niche market by a small developer / publisher studio?
#3
Posted 02 January 2020 - 03:05 PM
cszolee79, on 02 January 2020 - 11:15 AM, said:
Did you seriously expect a $200 million budget AAA level game for €31, made for a very niche market by a small developer / publisher studio?
Of course not, I have several low budget indie games that I love.
Some of my favourite games are Dominions 5, FTL and As I said, you only need some aspect of the game to stand out and be brilliant and it's fine if other aspects are lacking. You don't need modern level graphics if they are done with passion like in Darkest Dungeon, you don't need a great UI if the underlying game is a brilliant deep strategy game like Dominions.
The problem is that there is nothing to love about MW5 for me, and it's not that I don't love battletech and mechwarrior games. I do, MWO is probably my most played game ever and I played MW2-4 and really liked them.
If they go in and make some aspect of MW5 really great, then I'll probably love that too. But right now, what exactly is good about it? Seriously?
Edited by Sjorpha, 02 January 2020 - 03:07 PM.
#4
Posted 02 January 2020 - 05:10 PM
You are dead right about the graphics. The only thing that made me think “this looks great” was the mech hanger and some parts of the leopard....the stuff they showed us early as previews (they spent time on that.....but there is nothing to do in the leopard). Some of the mountains looks pretty cool. But overall it didn’t look nearly as good as I expected and for the most part not better than MWO. Some stuff looked 2009, not 2019
I did a playthrough and had a good time early game. Game got boring as soon as I got some assault mechs though. There was no way (even with the zombie horde mode the AI throws at you) to lose battles at that point (some of the meta builds on assaults are stupid powerful) . So, I never felt any real pressure late game. Worst thing that happens is you lose some high tier weapon or a skilled pilot might die from some random thing.
The combat is probably the best element and is good, but ironically it isn’t close to being better than MWO. The meta in MW5 is less diverse than MWO even.
I have no regrets and had fun....but the game needs work.
Edited by Marquis De Lafayette, 02 January 2020 - 05:17 PM.
#5
Posted 02 January 2020 - 06:58 PM
Edited by FRAGTAST1C, 03 January 2020 - 05:46 AM.
#7
Posted 03 January 2020 - 05:47 AM
#8
Posted 03 January 2020 - 07:25 AM
#9
Posted 03 January 2020 - 09:19 AM
As far as the AI, I thought it was pretty amazing how AI mech will actually torso twist to protect a damaged arm or torso section. I also noticed that often the AI would actively target specific components to try to reduce my firepower just like a real player would do. I can't count the times my Highlander got it's Gauss Rifle shot off while the rest of my mech was relatively undamaged. Same happened for the hunch on the hunchback and the arms on the Jagermech and Rifleman. That is pretty impressive since most AI's in games are completely dumb and generally only programmed to fire at center mass. I mean we are talking AI here, not players. What do you expect them to be capable of, complex decision making?
The destructible buildings are destructible, that in itself is pretty amazing. Very, very few games have a fully destructible environment and physics based destructible environments, ie environments where there is that weight your looking for are still mostly in the proof of concept phase only. We might start seeing those type of environments in 2-3 years in AAA titles if we are lucky.
As far as the story, I will admit it isn't a very good one. I am 18 years into my campaign and haven't finished the story yet. That seems an awful long time to let your father remain unavenged.
I also get annoyed about the placement of enemies, specifically the random spawn ins that happen behind you in an area that should have already been cleared and secured. I wish they would have made the reinforcement waves more organic and realistic, entering from various off map areas but I thought really hard about this and considering the scale of the maps and the general ability to approach objects from a variety of directions, I can see how this would be very hard to script. I mean if they had reinforcement enter this way, I can imagine often times by the time the reinforcement reached you, you would have already completed the objective. More realistic to be sure but often times a lot less challenging.
I also am a bid disappointed that they didn't add more lore, especially location based lore. I went to Outreach, the heart and soul of Mercs in the Innersphere and found....nothing. This location for example should have had tons of mechs to hire, mechs to buy, special missions to take, etc. Other, locations like Terra and such were just as underwhelming.
Overall though, especially considering the scope and content of the previous single player Mechwarrior titles, MW5 far surpasses them in just about every way. Honestly OP, I just think you are asking for too much and evaluating it based on unrealistic expectations.
I personally give it an 8 out of 10. There are a few issues and things I would have liked to have seen but the execution was much better than I expected given the abomination PGI made out of MWO. Finally, once they release the modding tool and unleash the community upon the game, I think most of what is missing from our vision of a perfect experience will show up through mods.
#10
Posted 03 January 2020 - 02:44 PM
Angel of Annihilation, on 03 January 2020 - 09:19 AM, said:
Annihilator, Red Faction, Battlefield, and this Unreal Engine tech demo would like to say that destruction has been around for a long time (and in the case of the tech demo, available for the unreal engine).
2001
360 generation of consoles
Battlefield series
My point is the stuff is already here and has been here. Though most have to develop their own.
The unreal physics tidbit however is just something they'd need to license to use, like the physics of source engine needs a $25k.
Edited by Koniving, 03 January 2020 - 02:49 PM.
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